New Skift Research Report: A Deep Dive Into Priceline’s Competitive Position in Travel 2017

Today we are launching the latest report for our Skift Research subscribers, A Deep Dive Into Priceline’s Competitive Position in Travel 2017.

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In the first section of the report, we peer into each of one of the company’s brands, including Booking.com, Kayak, Agoda, Priceline.com, OpenTable, and Rentalcars.com.

We discuss how Booking.com’s decision to pursue an agency model helped fuel inventory growth and why Booking.com’s margins are so much higher than others in the industry. We then provide our thoughts on the vacation rental market and how Booking.com is positioned. Finally, we look at Booking.com’s China partnership with Ctrip.

For Kayak, we provide detailed financial estimates that go far beyond what is in the public filings. We discuss the rationale of the Momondo acquisition and why metasearch matters more than the direct financial impact to Priceline.

We provide an overview of the Agoda and Rentalcars.com brands and determine the likely financial contribution to Priceline. For Priceline.com, we adjust for the GAAP accounting treatment of net revenue of the opaque Name Your Own Price model to estimate true economic impact. We examine the OpenTable write-down, looking at what went wrong and whether or not the impairment is due to overpaying for an asset or owning a deteriorating business.

Finally, we dig deep into company-level financials discussing revenue trends and key drivers like gross bookings, room nights, daily rates, and take rates. Operating margin faces a headwind from digital ad spend, especially on Google AdWords. We discuss how this dynamic is likely to play out.

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The second section of the report provides a detailed analysis of Priceline’s key online travel agency competitors in Expedia and Ctrip along with the leading metas in TripAdvisor and Trivago. We look at how the companies compare on revenue, gross bookings, margins, advertising spending, digital advertising, market share, and broader business fundamentals. We also touch on whether it could make sense for Priceline to consider acquiring TripAdvisor.

Here is what you will learn from this report:

• How the Agency model helped Booking.com rapidly scale its hotel business
• Trends in merchant versus agent revenue for Priceline and Expedia
• Why Priceline’s margins are so much higher than its peers
• How Booking.com is growing its vacation rental business and its competitive outlook versus HomeAway, Airbnb, and TripAdvisor
• Booking.com’s rationale for flight testing
• Priceline’s approach to corporate travel and broader industry dynamics
• Priceline’s strategy in Asia
• Estimates of Kayak’s revenue, expenses, and EBITDA margin
• Rationale for Priceline purchasing Momondo
• Why metasearch is important for Priceline
• Hotel spending trends on metasearch
• How much Priceline and Expedia spend on Trivago, TripAdvisor, Kayak, and Google
• What Kayak could be valued at as a standalone entity
• Whether OpenTable is a good asset acquired at a bad price or a fundamentally impaired one
• Estimates of OpenTable’s current financials and implied current valuation multiple
• Agoda’s rapid growth path and our revenue estimates for the unit
• How Priceline.com is phasing out the opaque merchant model
• What Priceline.com actually contributes to the company financially
• Why opaque bookings inflate GAAP revenue and deflate gross profit, but are neutral to operating income
• How Priceline uses Rentalcars.com to have a more complete online travel agency platform
• Analysis of Priceline’s revenue, gross bookings, room nights, daily rates, and take rates trends along with our forward outlook
• A detailed look at the company’s margins, looking at the headwind from variable ad spend and tailwind from fixed cost operating leverage
• Estimates of true U.S. revenue for Booking.com versus GAAP reported results
• In partnership with Hitwise, U.S. online travel agency market share trends
• Strategic and financial comparison of Priceline with Expedia, Ctrip, TripAdvisor, and Trivago
• Does it make sense for Priceline to acquire TripAdvisor?
• Airbnb as a threat to the online travel agencies — what is real, what is not
• Why Booking.com can maintain its dominant position in hotel distribution

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